Billy Crowe

05/29/2010

In late 1970, Mr. Wilson Jr. purchased what had been the Midnight
Magazinemansion after its owner, Editor and Publisher Clyde
Douglass, in a mid-life crisis, decided to go west. He bought Doug’s
place at what turned out to be a premium, becoming the first Black to
own a building on Chicago’s Gold Coast.

“He showed
them,” Barbara frequently boasted about the purchase. Meaning, he
showed the Gold Coast Real Estate Association that his clout was equal
to that of its protesting members.

Once the building was his, extensive
renovation was done. “Mr. W. Jr. wanted the building to look like a
world class office building, not just some converted Gold Coast party
house,” Ernie told me. “He wanted Black people to see the building and
be proud. He wanted white people to see the building and be dumbstruck.”

What Mr. Wilson Jr. wanted, Mr.
Wilson Jr. got. The hand-carved entrance doors were relocated to the
inside and replaced with glass and polished brass revolving ones. The
photography studio, where scores of Midnight Honeys bared all for
the camera, got a pretty dowdy makeover. Whenever I’d go there to check
out the photography layout for one of my stories, I’d find myself
wishing I were a time traveler who could visit the recent past.

The
ballroom, where celebrities from Frank Sinatra to Gloria Steinem to
Rev. Crowe had boogied, was transformed into the cafeteria. With the aid
of a sliding opaque glass partition, its front could become a formal
dining room. It had sliding glass doors to the balcony, which was
off-limits to employees, except during business lunches or receptions.

The
Raven offices were on the third floor where the Honey Dorm used
to be. Mr. Wilson Jr.’s office topped off the stately building,
transforming the penthouse where Doug had cavorted with many a Honey and
Honey-to-be. It was at once an office space and private quarters. The
majestic hand-carved entrance doors now stood as the portal to Mr.
Wilson Jr.’s duplexed executive suite. A high-yellow, big-breasted
secretary, in her 20s, with a gap between her front teeth, sat at a desk
just outside his complex guarding entry. At another desk just inside
the executive suite, sat another high-yellow woman, in her late 30s,
with a wide gap between her front teeth and triple-D breasts. She was
Mr. Wilson Jr.’s administrative assistant.

He had a cavernous office with an elevated
desk made from glistening ebony wood that was trimmed in, we were
assured, “legally imported” ivory elephant tusks. There were three
matching modern sofas upholstered in genuine zebra skin. A four-foot
diameter spiral staircase led to the upper level of the suite which was
Mr. Wilson Jr.’s private complex. It secreted a bedroom with a shower,
an exercise room and a completely mirrored nook with a classic Koken
barber’s chair custom-upholstered in emerald green leather.

Although
it was nearly 25 years in the making, it was literally a dream come
true. While stacking magazines to sell in his father’s store, young
Wilson Jr. experienced a vision. In it, the white magazines turned Black
and rather than his putting them out for sale, others did the job while
he supervised.

One month,
he and his father were selling chitterlings, chickens, fresh greens and
dry goods. The next month, the meats, milk and produce vanished. So did
the magazine racks, the candy counter, the canned foods and the cases of
Coca-Cola. Used desks and Corona typewriters took their places. Mr.
Wilson Sr. ditched his entire business to fund The Reverie by investing
the $727 numbers payoff and mortgaging himself from the manicured tip of
his goateed chin to the glossy tips of his black and white spats. Three
years later, when bill collectors were hounding father and son, the
staff detected in Mr. Wilson Sr. a hands-up surrendering.

The
morning after St. Patrick’s Day, the old man’s body was found floating
belly up, in the eternally green waters of the Chicago River.

05/24/2010

The leadership of the Black Power Summit, for the most part, consisted of Black nationalists and revolutionaries with a sprinkling of Black politicians thrown in for good measure. Black Arts Movement Poet Imamu Amiri Baraka was the organizer. So whenever Baraka, and the entourage of bodyguards and flunkies who flanked him from point to point, made his way through the passionately radical crowd, a phalanx of media followed—including me. Mayor Robert H. Beckworth was front and center stage, after all Prentice was his town. But, while it was Baraka’s troupes and Beckworth’s auditorium, it became Billy’s show.

Rev. Crowe had this unequalled talent for upstaging anyone at any public event where there happened to be media. This time, among this crowd, it would be prudent for him to raise his rhetoric. With his Afro combed out to it’s full glory and sporting a black daskiki with a red and green embroidered fist on the front, Billy took a shot at being more militant than the most militant at the Black power conference.

“If white America ain’t gonna give Black America its due, then we’ll do whatever we have to do to get our due. Do you hear me? I said, ‘if white America ain’t gonna give Black American its due, then we’ll have to do whatever we have to do to get our due,’” Crowe preached to a roaring crowd.

“Billy’s gone from talking shit to speaking do-due,” I joked with Allison as I watched him work both the audience and media.

She laughed.

I was no longer interested in working at Raven Magazine so I was all set to make my job interview a revolunary one. I planned to give those Negroes a piece of my Black mind. They would know, from the beginning, that I believed they were old-fashioned and out-of-fashion.

To make my point, I dressed to protest. No traditional suit and tie for this job interview. I showed up in a very mod Royal blue knit wool leisure suit. The pants were narrow legged and cuff less. The four-button modified military-style jacket was cut at the waist. The suit looked like something Richard Roundtree might be wearing as John Shaft. I wore a Navy blue knit turtleneck underneath. I was GQ on the Black-hand side.

“Damn, Trotsky, you look delicious. Don’t let any of those sisters at WIPE peel you like a grape,” Allison said, fastening the snaps on her suitcase.

Although we had flown to Chicago from D.C. together to cover the Black Power Summit, she’d be flying home alone. She had to be back in the station at WCDC-AM later that day. I would be on my own.

“Hmmmm,” I said, savoring the thought.

“Oh, before I forget, I’ve got a good luck gift for you.”

“Really?”

“For real. Close your eyes.”

I obeyed, resisting the temptation to peek. Allison tenderly put her arms around me. She kissed me gently on my earlobe then clipped something around my neck.

“You can open up now.”

I looked at the 18-karat gold chain. A cardboard sign bearing Allison’s handwriting in big red lettering had been safety-pinned to it. It was easy to read, even upside down. It read: TAKEN.

Chapter One

I
signaled slightly with both hands for him to keep it down as I backed
towards the kitchen sink with him drifting my way.

“What?” he asked irritated. His head pivoted between the discussion in
the living room and me.

“Who’s the fox?” It
was a question I mouthed silently. Allison was in earshot.

“Which one?” whispered Bakman, his eyes bouncing back and forth between
Constance Pitts and the beauty that was piquing my interest at the
moment. Bakman strained to read my lips. “I know who that one
is,” I pantomimed, motioning towards Connie, who was definitely worth
the hunt. She was tiny, shapely and gorgeous. She carried herself like a
Nubian princess. She was our neighbor.

Allison and I lived in a modern high-rise complex called Prairie Towers.
About a year before we took up residence, Connie moved into the complex
seeking refuge. She was the former Chicago Chronicle-Observer
reporter who broke the story about Toni Tolliver, the up-and-coming
mulatto television series actress, and her secret, out-of-wedlock
childbirth. Tolliver had managed to hide her pregnancy from close
friends, relatives and gossip columnists. About the time she would have
begun to show, she vanished from public view. Constance’s front-page
story reported that Tolliver was holed up in Lake Point Tower, the new
luxury high-rise building at the footprint of Navy Pier. That she had
given birth to a seven-pound, six-ounce baby boy. And that the infant’s
alleged father was none other than the cosmos preacher, Rev. Billy
Crowe.

A fanatical bunch of the righteous reverend’s
flock from Mission JAB--Justice Advocating Blacks--became indignant and
vengeful. They picketed, morning, noon and night, in front of the Hyde
Park two-flat where Constance lived. Both Tolliver and Crowe denied the
minister was the father of the child. But Tolliver never got around to
naming who was and no one stepped forward to claim the honor.

For three months, Constance suffered through the angry pickets and
unrelenting charges that she was a lying, shameful sell-out. She
steadfastly refused to “dignify with a response” the rumor that but
for-the-grace-of-God someone could have reported a similar story about
her. She dismissed as “character assassination” the gossip that she had
been a secret lover to the reverend, duly noting that she and Mrs. Crowe
knew each other on a social as well as professional basis. In the end,
her suffering paid off. Constance was offered a reporting job by one of
the local network television stations.

“Not
her, Jerk-off. You and I both know who she is,” I lip spoke and
motioned. “The other fox.”

“Later, Mr.
Pierce,” Bakman grinned, turning back to the meeting.

That was good enough for me since I had no business allowing myself the
diversion. After all, this was a meeting I had called. Well, Allison
and I had called. Allison stood with her back to the view from our
living room. The city skyline, glowing a deep golden orange from the
sunset, served as her backdrop. “For the past few months, some of y’all
have been talking about forming an organization of Black journalists. So
Pierce and I figured that maybe we all should stop talking about it
and do something about it,” Allison said, pausing to underscore
her point.

“You know, we all have our
personal ambitions. We all want to get ahead. Most of us want a cushy
crib, a long ride and a fat bankroll. That’s cool,” Allison said,
swatting away any flickering notions of disagreement that may have been
polluting the air. “I’m not going to knock that. But, I think we need to
face facts: that probably ain’t gone happen for most of us unless all
of us come up with a plan for The Man. We’ve got to put pressure on
these white bosses at these major media companies to hire more of us.”

The heads of the dozen journalists in the room bobbed off beat. The fox
sat wide-eyed and open. She was all legs. I nudged Bakman. Gave him
the old “can you imagine those babies wrapped around your waist” look.
He gave me the nod. Her skin tone was a deep rich dark chocolate. That
was where her blackness started and seemed to end. Her features were
European. Her eyes were a curious hazel color. She wore an Afro that
wasn’t; her dark auburn hair too fine to work as a ‘fro but she was
styling it anyway. It was a huge delicate ball, threatening to collapse
under its own weight. Overall, the fox looked like a well-built white
girl dipped in creamy hot fudge.

Roy Reed Wright, a
brother I’d seen around town from time to time, had his eyes on her
too. He gave her a wink as he whipped out his Berkshire pipe. I watched
him as his eyes shifted from Allison to the fox then back to Allison. I
knew the look.

Rudolph Lomax rose to
speak. “For those of you who don’t know me,” he started with
disingenuous modesty. Everybody at the meeting read the Chicago
Chronicle-Observer, which ran a photograph of him atop his column and
watched, Back to Black, his weekly public affairs TV talk show.
We knew who he was.

05/03/2010

“The story you are about to read is almost true. Only the names have been changed to protect the contrite.”--Raejean Corliss

“This is ungranulated, unadulterated, unabridged fantasy. It was made up and played out. Believe it if you want to. Fuck you if you do.”--Pierce Trotter

Epilogue/Prologue

January 7, 1984

I almost laughed at Raejean’s funeral.Seriously.

I had to clench the insides of my cheeks with my teeth. Think grave thoughts. Remember how solemn the occasion was. Stop considering the absurdity of it all.

Not bursting into laughter wasn’t easy. But I knew that if I laughed it wasn’t going to be one of those silent rolling chuckles I could keep. The laughter was going to be rambunctious. Rabid. Mad. So I clenched. Thought about how my wild, maniacal laugh would sound as it rolled through the pews over the heads of the mourners, bouncing off brilliant stained glass windows. A dancing discord. I fought to retain the roar. Knowing that the only person in this sanctuary who would have understood was lying stiffly in a coffin, dead. Dead. So I bit the insides of my cheeks and dug the nails of one hand into the flesh of the other to ward off the threatening hysterics.

I even tried to cry.

It was all too ridiculous. Raejean was 33. She was talented. She was brilliant. She was beautiful. She was my best friend. She was gone. A .22 slug through the heart. Self-inflicted. It was as tidy as that type of suicide can be. And, classically Corliss, it was thought through and well planned. Before she shot herself, Raejean cleaned her new Old Town greystone from carpet to chandelier. The dishes were washed and put away. Both her guest and master bathrooms were scrubbed and scoured. Brand new monogrammed bath towels, neatly arranged, hung from the towel racks. Her bills were paid. A dozen-and-a half individually written suicide notes, all composed in iambic pentameter, were sealed in hand-addressed off-white envelopes stacked on her white Norwegian oak nightstand, awaiting distribution to family members and close friends. Like me. Roy, her estranged spouse, got two suicide notes. One was private. The other generic and instructional. A To-Whom-It May-Concern note of cordiality for any and all who may have felt slighted because they didn’t get a personal ode to her self-demise.

That was Rae. She didn’t want to leave anyone feeling left out.

I seldom go to funerals or weddings. I’m not comfortable at either. Both are ceremonies of perplexity: We don’t know what happens after death. Half the time, we know all too well what happens after marriage.

Raejean’s funeral was unlike any I had ever read about or heard of. It was pre-planned. Pre-arranged. Pre-paid. In her posthumous instructions, laid out in the generic suicide note, Raejean designated the funeral home she wanted to handle her body. She specified the church, the day and the hour for her last rites. The funeral ceremony was to be racially integrated, of course. Two men of the cloth would administer the services in what amounted to a pepper and salt tag-team approach. “The Urban Prophet,” the Rev. Billy Crowe, president and founder of Mission JAB, which Raejean once described in her column as “the most militant and momentous of the moderate Civil Rights organizations,” was one. The other was Father Robert McNicholas, an activist Catholic priest, nationally known for his liberal theological and humanitarian views. Raejean’s instructions spelled out every detail for her funeral, big and small. She decreed just who was to deliver her eulogies, how long they were expected to speak--and in what order. She had visited Oak Woods Cemetery and selected the site where she wanted to be laid to rest. Her burial plot was bought and paid for months in advance. Except for the death date, her slate-gray, green-marbled tombstone had been engraved weeks ahead. It read: “My life was metered and measured from there to here.”

And that was it. For Rae.

But what about me? Where was I going? Where had I been?

It was a long story. No. In retrospect, my life was a long series of short stories, warped and wefted. Encompassing me as I sat there facing Raejean’s death. Propelling me to wander back through my life. Compelling me to wonder deeply about my life.